CONCEPTUAL MIND, BREAKING REALITY INTO PIECES

 

We have a conceptual mind, lineal conceptual mind. A mind that think in concepts and ideas, putting them in boxes. And it´s linear, one after the other.

It´s true that we can do few tasks at once; we can drive, smoke and talk at the same time. But our conscious attention, our focus will be just in one ... swapping very fast from one to another, so it gives the impression of multiple tasks.

But we can think one thing at a time, one after another, linear. Our mind can grasp just one thing at a time, but the world is not linear, billons of things happen at the same time, and our mind can process just few of this happening. For that we have a selective attention, a focused attention.

 

If we get into a theatre full of people and look around trying to find our friend, we will see dozens of faces and dozens of different suits and colour but we are not going to remember any of them, because it´s not relevant, but if someone steps on us, we will remember his face, or the dress of that pretty person that looked at us. We have a selective attention in order to manage all the information around us. We focus on what our mind decides at each time that is important, depending on the situation, all the vast rest, is left unperceived, and unnoticed.

 

Trying to understand the world purely by thinking about it, is a clumsy process as trying to drink the Pacific Ocean out of a pint glass. You can only take one pint at the time. So, when thinking about things you can just think one thought at the time, one after another. Thinking is a lineal process, like writing.

So, for to handle and try to understand this huge multi dimensional happening of life, the brain needs methods of simulating. We fragment the world into pieces, symbols, events, nouns, ... . The "method" of thinking is to break the real world in pieces (concepts) and then, try to put it into boxes and classifies.

 

It is like getting into a dark room with a small spotlight; you can see just a little circle, just a spot of the room, where the torch points, and then our mind process those images, remember the different parts, and put them together and try to create an image of the whole room. It will be a distortion, it will be a severe lack of details and information, different to if we could see the whole room with the light on, all together at one, without the thinking process ... that is real, that is what is really happening now.

 

Our mind tries to reproduce the outside reality inside the mind by putting pieces together and inventing or interpolating the left gaps.

 

 (Alan Watts, Intro to oriental philosophy I).

 

The symbols, and the concepts are separate from each other, but the real things they represent are NOT !! ... and then our mind put them together to create an idea of what is really happening out there, and then we think that reality is divided too!.

 

We put a label on everything around us; a name, a symbol, a time period, a number ... and then in this way we fragment the world in names and events, and then we think that the world exists of different names and events, we grid it!! but it doesn't!! ... and this is a very difficult idea to grasp. But it´s true we put lines, divisions, boxes where in real life they aren´t!!. A line in the land to divide countries, names and religions and social groups to divide people, ... even we divide the time in hours, days and whatever!!  Time is a flow, a continuous non stopping happening, like the flow of a river, how  could you divide a river into pieces? Well, it is done in order to think about it, we divide life into concepts which are easy to handle by the brain. But life is not concepts, real life is not in boxes, even “we” are not a concept or a box called Ego, we are a happening, a flow, an alive organism that change every second; our feelings, our mood, our thoughts, our body, our digestion ... all is a continuous happening, a flowing river of life.

 

You can´t catch the world in a conceptual net, it´s like if you try to catch water with a net, it will all slip through.

 

But this "thinking process" is so useful for us; we can predict what will happen, from remembering what had happened.

 

We are living a symbolic life; money, names, fast food ... they are concepts, imitations of reality. We are spending our lives thinking of real things.

 

So, remember. It´s OK to do it if you want to live like this, but don´t forget real life is not divided, we are not divided, the land doesn´t have dividing lines, ... we are not separate from each others, not from nature, not from earth neither from the space, ... All is One.

 

 

THE CONCEPT OF EGO AND THE REAL YOU.

 

We confuse the concept of our self with ourselves.

Your "Ego" is what you think is “you”, it is the symbol of your actual organism.

 

The man started to use symbols to improve life and make it easier:  Names, numbers, ideas... and they are so useful that man started to confuse symbols with reality.

 

We are prone to confusion between our symbolic personality and our living organism, and the last is the real one. We are not a thing, we are a process. (Alan Watts, Intro to oriental philosophy II).

 

So the EGO, what we feel as “I” is the image or idea we have about ourselves. This is made up mostly of things that other people told us about ourselves, or by looking at ourselves in the mirror, or by listening to ourselves playback in a tape recorder or TV…all these create an image of ourselves.

 

This image of ourselves is obviously not ourselves, anymore that an idea of a tree is a tree, nor are you getting  wet in the “word” water. The image of ourselves is extremely inaccurate and incomplete. My image of me is not at all your image of me. And my image of me is totally incomplete, it’s a caricature. It´s formed mainly through my interaction with other people, who tell me how I am in various ways (directly or indirectly) and I set up this conception. (08:22. Alan Watts).

 

Our personality consist to adapt in one of the accepted social roles; strong silent man, funny and cheeky, serious hard worker, drunk, clown, business man, laborer, intellectual … you identified yourself with a certain way of acting which constitute your image, your personality, your role, your mask in society "Person" in Latin means mask worn by actors in the Greek theatre. What you learn to do in your education is to act a social role that is acceptable.

The image of yourself that you have is an agreement for social purposes, it´s not real. In the same way that we divide the day in 24 hours, or that we divided the foot in12 inches, or that we divided the earth in parallels and meridians … you can’t use the equator to tie up a parcel, as you can´t use a minute to hold your glass of wine…. They are imaginary, they are not in the earth, it´s abstract. So in the same way, your image of yourself, the EGO, is an imaginary concept that is NOT you, not your organism.  And if you come to realized that your organism is you ... you will discover that you are a process with the rest of the world. As you can't isolate a wave from the ocean ... we are part of the universe. But we can't see that with our mind, because the mind can´t hold such a big picture, it has to break it, so it can hold just small bites at one time. (Alan Watts, Intro to oriental philosophy II).

 

    And as a result of this fragmentation of the world, "bits" way of thinking of the world, we feel isolated and disconnected.

 

    You and the universe is really the same thing. That's why when you were born, they draw a picture of the universe of that moment, the cosmic organism, the horoscope.

 

 

DUALITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND                                    

   THE ENVIRONMENT AS ONE

 

    The model of the universe, which is characteristically Chinese, is that the universe is an organism, where the world has no boss, even no employees, because in every organism there isn't a boss or a top organ. They are all necessary and work together, they are all different but working together.

 

    We are accustomed in our culture to think that heads are ruling the rest of the body, but the head can't live without the stomach or the heart or the lungs. An organism is a system and have no separate parts, you can't replace or un-screw organs. An organism grows, and develops all at once, together, and there is not a boss on it. A mechanism is made of parts, and you can cut and replace them as with an automobile. There is a big difference between mechanism and organism; the first is made by parts putted one after the other, an organism grows all at once. Unlike in machines, in a organism missing a part affect the othes.

 

 

    But, in our occidental culture we have another model of the universe; we think that heads are the boss; a country needs a King or a president, a town needs a Mayor, a company needs a director, a needs a head, even in religion God is the almighty boss in the golden throne above us.

 

    But in an organism, in nature, each part minds, each part has its function, and not one is more or less important, they all work together as ONE.

 

    So we learn to see that we divide our body in parts, and now we can see all as one body, one organism. So, why do we divide and separate the organism from the environment? One can´t be without the other, they act and even grow as one. Can you imagine a fish without water, a lion without sun and meat, a bird without trees, a bee without flowers, and a penguin without ice... . They go together, they evolve together, and they depend completely on each other. It can´t exist; an environment without the organism, it´s a synergy, a symbiosis, a co-existence ... all is one.

 

     Remember: the difference between mechanism and organism; the first is made by parts put one after the other, an organism grows all at once. In nature the individual organism goes together with its environment becoming together, a bigger organism too. And therefore, more organisms together create a bigger organism until the whole earth is just one organism.

 

    My body cannot exist except in certain kind of natural environment, it requires air, and that air must be a certain temperature and have exactly the right proportion of gas in it. My body requires nutrition, therefore to be in a certain kind  of planet, near a certain kind of star spinning regularly around it in a certain rhythmically way, so that life can go on. And all that arrangements are essential to the existence of my body as its own internal organs. Let´s say: my heart, my brain, my lungs, and so for… these all works as one creating a whole, an organism, a living happening.

 

    My heart is not separated from my lungs, and my lung are not separated from my skin, and my skin is not separated from my feet, and my feet is not separated from the land, and the land is not separated from the water, and the water is not separated from the air, and the air is not separated from the space, and the space is connecting all the celestial bodies. They are different but all goes together as ONE.

 

    So there is not really a way to separate an organism from the natural environment in which it lives. That means that “I” as a body go with my natural environment in the same way, exactly, as the bees go with flowers, bees look very different from flowers; the flowers grow out from the ground, color and perfume the air. The bees are independent, they buzz around and fly, but where there is no bee there is no flower, and where there is no flower, there is not bee, they go together. (Alan Watts, Intro to oriental philosophy II).

    So, let´s start to see things as they are ... out of the constrict grasp of the mind. All is One.

 

 

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.

DRIVING  OUR LIVES

 

    This is a new concept and attitude in life.

 

    We don´t drift in life, letting things happen by causality or casualty. And sorry, but there isn´t an all almighty God driving each of our lives.

 

    Sometimes, we think our present is driven by the past and that we have been doing the same thing, some times for years and that it would be impossible to change a habit, an idea, a way of living or thinking ... It´s the all way round, what we did in the past (which was in present at that time) has created our present, but it was present at that time. I repeat in other words: present is not linked to past. What we are doing NOW, in this only present will affect what will happen to us and around us. For example: “ If I steal a car now, it will change my life: if no one catches me I will have that car for free but always risking being caught so I will have to be careful and watchful for signs of police. Or if they catch me, probably I will be going to jail for a certain period of time”. This is how the present drives the future happening. But the past doesn´t have a window with the present, doesn´t affect at all the present. So you can´t say (in order to be coherent) that past actions stop you from changing or doing anything now in the present.

 

 .... No mystic energy from the past is stopping you to change your life and your attitude in life. So, if today you want to start to help people in Africa, stop your vicious circle, and be respectful with the planet and all the human beings around you .... no one is stopping you. You can´t use anymore that old tale of you been doing the same for the last 20 years and you can´t change now. As we learn the conception of time and how free we are in it, we are now able to drive our lives into our right goals, fair and wise ones

 

TIME & EVENTS, WE DIVIDE IT INTO PIECES.

 

    Life moves along since the beginning and it´s all one, it´s connected as one long event. But we have to divide it in order to process it in our mind. Let´s take an example of division and separation of events:  If we ask ourselves the easy question: When was I born?  we could easily answer: … “When my parents met each other, or when the spermatozoid was created in your father´s sexual organ, or when they made love, or when I first kicked in my mother´s belly, or at the moment of parturition, or my first breath, or my first meal? ...”. All these events could be a right answer, and they are not separated. Each of these moments can be though of as beginnings of a new life, but we decided for purposes of legal registration that life begins at the moment of parturition, this is purely an arbitrary decision and it has validity only because we all agree about it.

 

    Because the events flow into each other, we cannot say exactly when one ends and the other begins. To divide events from one another is a matter of definition, a conceptual trick to have real time into bits to make it easier for our mind to handle, but then … we forgot we did divide events... and then we have a puzzle...

 

    Then we forget how events lead one to each other. We create a very common idea of causality, that events are caused by previous event from which they flow or result necessarily. But in reality they are not separate events, life moves along like water and is all connected like the source of the river is connected to the mouth and the ocean. So, if we remember this, we should see that we don´t need the idea of causality to explain how a prior event influences a following event.

 

    Let´s take another example; Supposing I´m looking through a narrow hole in a fence and a snake goes by in the garden. I never seen a snake before, and this is a mysterious event. I see through the hole of the fence, first the snake´s head, then I see a long trailing body and then finally, I see the snake´s tail. I say: “that was interesting!”. When the snake turns around and goes back, again I see first the head, then I see the middle body and in the end I see the snake´s tail. So if I call the “head” one event and the “tail” another, it would seems to me that the event head is the cause of the event tail, and the tail is the effect. But if I stand above the fence and see the whole snake, a headed tailed snake, it would be completely absurd to say that the head of the snake is the cause of the tail. (Alan Watts, On time)

 

 

    So exactly in the same way, all events are really one longer event. When we are talking about different events, we are looking at different sections or parts of one continuously happening. Our mind can´t process life as it is, our mind has to cut things into bits, so it can create a low-quality reproduction of what is going on in real life, outside the skull.

 

We create conflicts because this non-understanding, because we can’t see the whole picture. We don’t understand why many things happen to us and we blame our couple, the neighbour, the boss, the bad luck …god. Just, because we can’t see the continuity of  events.

 

 

 

*Most of the ideas of this chapter are based on Allan Watts texts, talks… arguably the best thinker on Oriental philosophy.